


River to the Sea

by Azdaema



Category: Fern Verdant and the Silver Rose - Diana Leszczynski
Genre: Boats and Ships, F/M, Found Family, Long Lost Twins, Orphans, Reunited and It Feels So Good, basically think ASOUE but less cynical, discussion of institutionalization, kids raising kids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27971963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azdaema/pseuds/Azdaema
Relationships: Anthony/Francesca (Fern Verdant and the Silver Rose)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2
Collections: Obscurest Cest Fest





	River to the Sea

Anthony led her to his cabin, located—as traditional for captains’ cabins—in the stern. “Pick whatever of my clothes you want,” he told her, before taking his leave and closing it behind him.

Francesca slowly stripped off her jumpsuit, her mind a jumbled mess.

Of course she had not expected to find her brother unchanged. They'd been apart seven years—half their life! And yet somehow, she was still not prepared for the reality of it. It wasn't even that Anthony had changed beyond recognition, yet he seemed half a stranger to her. Who was he now?

In her mind, the question “Who is Anthony?” was always answered, “He’s my twin brother.” Now the simplism of this answer embarrassed her. Of course he did not exist exclusively in relation to her. Clearly Anthony was other things as well—now, chief among them, captain of the _Porpoise_ and its motley crew of orphans.

Francesca wondered what Anthony made of her now.

Who was _she_? In some ways, that was the bigger question. There was still a glimmer of the boy of her childhood in the Anthony of today—fiercely loyal; always ready to take charge of any game, unless she objected and fought him over it. Standing before her now, she could identify other traits he had picked up: he was self-possessed in a way that could be true, or could merely be a performance he put on for the benefit of his crew.

But who was _she_?

Her brother had stolen a boat, blackmailed a grown man, become captain to this ragtag group of kids. All the while she’d been locked up, put on pause. The only thing Francesca could say she'd ever done was run away, and that was nothing special—everyone on this boat had done at least _that_ , even the littlest one, who could be no more than eight. She felt _younger_ than her brother. He had lived the full of their fourteen years, while she had lost so much of it to the institute’s drugged haze of permanent exhaustion.

A small mirror on the wall showed Francesca her head and shoulders. In the harsh LED light, her already pale skin looked even paler. The image brought to mind an illustration in a coloring book, waiting to be filled in. Her hair fed this resemblance, an orange so bright it matched a child’s crayon, sticking out at angles that approximated the scribblings of the seven-year-old she had been when the twins had been separated.

In the meantime Anthony had grown into a fully real person. He was a lifelike portrait, made of human hues, the sun tanning his skin, lightening his hair until it was more blond than orange.

A knock on the door. “Chicca?”

It had been half her life since she'd heard that nickname, but she responded reflectively. “Yeah?”

She jumped as the door opened a crack, just enough to reveal her brother’s face as his eyes widened and face flushed, before the door was slammed shut again.

“The clothes are in the drawers under the bed,” he stammered from the other side.

“Got it.” She should say something else, surely, but for the life of her she couldn’t think what.

Francesca chose a pair of drawstring pajama pants—that should fit, right?—and a t-shirt. Glancing in the mirror, she was surprised at what a difference it made. Garbed in actual clothes—not a baggy white jumpsuit, not just her ghostly pale skin—she looked halfway to real. A shudder ran down her spine. She counted out fifteen seconds, just to give them both time for the blush to pass, and then opened the door.

“Do they fit?”

“Well enough,” she said, holding her arms out in demonstration.

“Good. C'mon, we need to get rid of that jumpsuit.”

They climbed up onto the ship’s deck. Telling each other their stories had taken a long time, and it was now quite late at night. The dock was deserted save for a few sleeping harbor seals. Large yellow floodlights were spaced intermittently, and several were burnt out. The other boats along the dock showed no signs of life, seeming skeletal and otherworldly in the patchy buttery illumination.

Anthony crossed the gangplank first and held out a hand to steady Francesca as she crossed. But she crossed nimbly and unaided, the shakiness she’d born when boarding the boat earlier that day gone. She was a real person now, and would only get realer the longer she was here. She grinned at Anthony, and he grinned back.

They set off at a walk, but they didn’t make it far before they were running, racing each other to the end of the dock. Planks creaked underfoot, and one seal looked up in lazy annoyance. Anthony won, but Francesca didn’t mind—he was stronger than her from his work on the boat, but soon enough she would be too, and there would be a rematch. She skidded to a halt, laughing, and despite the dreamlike elements—the unreal quality of the landscape, and Anthony’s presence—she was breathing hard and her blood was thrumming and she felt more _alive_ than she had in longer than she could remember.

She stopped at the trashcan, but Anthony didn’t. “We need to sink it,” he said, beckoning her to follow as he made his way down to the shoreline. “C’mon, we need to get a rock.”

There were no lights down by the water, and selecting a medium-sized rock took a great deal of squinting. Back up on the dock, Francesca watched as Anthony spread the jumpsuit flat, placed the rock in the middle, and tied the limbs of the garment together around it. Turning to her, he offered her the bundle. “Would you like to do the honors?”

She took it. “So I just… throw it?”

“You don’t have to throw it. Just drop it in the water.”

But she did throw it, positioning herself right beneath a floodlight where she would be able to watch it sink. With a clumsy underhand swing, she propelled it as far as she could. It hit the dark water with a splash, and disappeared.

The pair stayed for a moment, watching the rings ripple out.

“Do you really think there was a tracker on it?” Francesca asked eventually.

“I don't know, but they _drugged_ you; I wouldn’t put anything past them. Why risk it?” Anthony shuddered at the thought, then reached out and took her hand. “You're _here_ now, and there’s no way in hell they’re getting you back. And if somehow they still find us, we’ve got a harpoon.”

She nearly laughed at that threat, but after a second she realized he wasn’t joking. It was a completely literal threat to attack the staff of NITPIC with a harpoon.

And so she only nodded, and tried to let herself feel safe.

They made their way back to the boat slowly. Should she have let go of her brother’s hand by now? Probably. But she didn’t really want to, and it would be weirder to drop it now, wouldn’t it?

With great trepidation, Anthony asked the question he had made a point to not ask earlier in front of his crew: “How did you end up… there?”

“I was only in one foster home after they separated us. I was seven, and I was so lonely, so I created an imaginary friend. I guess they thought I was talking to myself, so they sent me to NITPIC.”

“Were you—” he blushed and looked away, “—were you imagining I was there?”

“No, actually.” She said it as gently as she could. “I tried that at first, but it hurt even worse, ‘cause it wasn’t true, y’know? The best way to cope was to not think too much about how things would be if you _were_ there, if we were together. I needed to think about _anything_ other than how much I missed you and how lonely I was. So I created this imaginary friend instead.”

Anthony nodded thoughtfully.

When they reached the boat, they let go of one another’s hands to cross the gangplank.

“Do you want to go to bed now? Or after being drugged to sleep at NITPIC, is sleep bad?”

“Sleep is ok. I’ll go to sleep in a little bit. Right now, I’m too awake.”

“Alright. Just take my cabin for tonight, and we’ll set you up with your own cabin tomorrow. You can paint it whatever color you want—I think we have some paint left, though we'll have to check what colors.”

“Are the bunks wide enough to fit two?” The one in the cabin had looked pretty narrow earlier.

“I usually keep watch at night.”

“Then when _do_ you sleep?”

He shrugged.

She frowned at this, eyeing him suspiciously, but made no argument.

The bridge was raised above the rest of the deck. Anthony sat down leaning his back against it, and so Francesca joined him. They sat in silence for a while, listening to the water lapping against the hull.

“So the little boy is Kai. And the older boy is…?”

“Tim. He's my navigator.”

“And the two girls—which one’s Jane?”

“The blond one, the taller one. The younger one is Lulu.”

“Tim, Kai, Jane, and Lulu. _Lulu_ is the _littler_ one,” Francesca recited. “Ok, I think I can remember that. Oh, and in the morning,” she added, “don't tell them I had to ask again.”

Anthony just chuckled.

“It was a hectic day!”

“It was,” he agreed.

They lapsed into silence again for a moment.

“It would’ve been _such_ a near miss,” Francesca murmured eventually. “If that girl hadn’t told me about the drugged milk, I would still be there now.”

“And we would still be on route to break you out,” he brother replied confidently, with a one-armed hug. “It really was an _epic_ jailbreak plan,” he teased, “before you ruined it by meeting us halfway.”

Francesca laughed.

“We might have to go anyways and liberate someone else, just to get a chance to use it.”

“No,” she shuddered, her tone marking the end of the joke. “I’m not going back there.”

“Ok,” he agreed simply. “Ok.”


End file.
